In this episode, we speak with Dr. Jennie Weiner Ph.D., professor of Education Leadership at UConn’s Neag School of Education. Dr. Weiner raised quite a few eyebrows earlier on during this COVID-19 pandemic when she Tweeted about how she had no intention of homeschooling her kids while sheltering-at-home, and was going to allow them to enjoy their video games, eat cookies, and play instead. Her Tweet quickly went viral, and she was invited to write an op-ed piece in the New York Times to discuss her philosophy and motivations behind taking this approach.

The Neag School of Education, UConn’s Department of English, and the Connecticut Writing Project (CWP) at UConn are proud to announce Connecticut’s winners of the 26th annual Letters About Literature competition, a nationwide contest sponsored by the Library of Congress for students in grades 4 through 12.

With her three kids — ages 19, 17 and 14 — home for the foreseeable future, Chafouleas and her husband were left, like so many Connecticut parents, to adjust to a new normal of balancing home-schooling and telecommuting.

“The first class I was teaching in English to American kids I was a bit nervous at times,” Wang said. “Taking this initiative [to talk to people] first, you will actively solve your problem. Second, you will take this challenge as an exercise for you to establish good communication ability and interact with people in the host country.”

“While all levels of government are working overtime to solve the immediate issues of controlling the coronavirus and flattening the curve, it is apparent we were not prepared for dealing with a pandemic of this magnitude,” says former Neag School dean Richard Schwab and University of Rhode Island’s Richard Rhodes III.

“My kids are watching TV, playing video games and eating cookies,” says Jennie Weiner, a professor of educational leadership at the Neag School of Education and mother of two boys. “It’s fine.”